Driven to Distraction video blog (Ep. 14): Funny Girl Singalong

It wasn't in the original show. And neither were "Second-Hand Rose" and "My Man." Jule Styne and Bob Merrill had written what were more or less equivalents for classic Fanny Brice numbers, the best being "The Music That Make Me Dance."

I saw the original on Broadway (Yes, I'm THAT OLD!) and Babs was great. But she was even better in the movie. It was quite something. She had never appeared in a movie before and she "got" how movies worked right off the bat. Of course having as great a director as William Wyler certainly helped, and Herbert Ross was no slouch with the musical numbers either. But at the end of the day the movie rises or falls on her shoulders. And boy did it rise.

I'm saying this, BTW, as someone who's not really a Barbra fan. I like her in certain things, and not in others. Plus as a singer I find she operates within a certain range of material and no more. But that's more than OK when she gets material that truly suits her (eg. "He Touched Me")

Read what Glenn Gould had to say about her singing. He said it best.  

I loved your comments. They were incisive and right on. Her legs are skinny, and she did phone in Second Hand Rose. I think the point of that particular delivery was the Fanny didn't really believe she had a chance. She follows it with a huge objection to being cast as a pretty woman.

The "From the faces that could cause 'ya, temporary nauea, do I have to hear a lecture such as that? Is a nose of deviation such a crime against the nation...et al by the mother and the coffee klatch women, that is almost the entire motivation for Fanny's character. She was the ugly duckling with the big nose who never quite felt she was good enough for a hot man and along came that snake, Nicky Arnstein.

I loved that you mentioned Anne Francis. She got so summarily screwed in this picture. They dressed her up and gave her noplace to go. I am a diehard Barbra fan, but also a diehard Anne Francis fan because I am old enough to remember Honey West, etc. I am not sure, though, that we can lay her cutting room floor residence in this picture at Barbra's feet. The movie ran long and they did some serious editing. Some got put back in the second release, but Anne never did. If you look at the movie a few more times, you see the love story doesn't need a 'best friend' to lean on. Mom was enough. On stage, we have sets to change, and costumes to swap. In movies, we don't need folks on stage entertaining the troops so backstage stuff can go on and the rabble don't get bored, so parts got axed. Like Danny Mehan.

I am glad you are a fan of the movie. I was too. I thought they did such a wonderful job of communicating an age-old story of theatre that some of us knew well, and others didn't even have a clue about.

If you want the santized version, see Second Hand Rose with Alice Faye. That will frost your knickers and will simultaneously show you just exactly how well done this movie was.

Loved the movie when it first came out, but I was just a lad.  Looking at it now, it seems to suffer from what so many movies of the 50's and 60's did--they just couldn't do a period piece without HEAVILY filtering it through contemporary eyes (and ears).